ISpyDude

After two really bad movies which are below cartoon quality, followed by another which had potential but blew it, followed by the extremely successful yet completely horrid in every other sense story (that's, in order, "Live and Let Die", "The Man with the Golden Gun", "The Spy Who Loved Me", and "Moonraker" we are finally presented, once again, with a true Bond film. Bond has only been 'serious' and 'down to earth' three times before: "Dr. No" (1962), "From Russia With Love" (1963), and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1968). It was "Goldfinger" which introduced the campy, cartoonish style which as a principle is as far away from Ian Fleming's creation as you could get. Unfortunately, people liked it and that's why 11 more Bond movies made throughout the years are no more than cannon fodder with the occasional glimer of hope promptly snuffed out by the desire for cheap antics...

Even better, with the first two Bond movies aside, look at all 19 Bond (as of 1999) titles and combine them ONLY with sales returns. Ignore every other aspect - writing, acting, etc. See the movies whose attendences were lower? Those are actually the *better* ones in terms of plot, content, style, and depth ("A View to a Kill" excepted!) :-)

Back to "F Y E O". A NATO sub is shot down off the coast of Greece which contains the ATAC, a device critical to NATO. Bond is sent out by MI6 by M's superiors (Bernard Lee died in this time, so M was not included in the movie - fortunately the movie has such a serious intent that M's superiors were needed anyway) to retrieve the device... and, you guessed it, he's in for a great deal of trouble and intrigue. This movie has depth (in both plot and character) so if you're into pointless hollywood action and sexual drivel then this movie is not for you.

Not only is this movie serious, it also has a few plot twists which continue to distract yet enthrall the viewer to come back for more (or Moore!).

First of all, and I'm going to say this before or again, Roger Moore EXCELS himself in this movie. Now, Moore himself protested at the movie in terms of darker style and having Bond himself killing someone in cold blood (Bond's shot people before but that's on duty. In this movie Bond is emotionally driven to kill - yes, it's an oddity but refreshing from the standard sort of rubbish viewers expect and more along the lines I'd expect from any good film - character depth! Bond, in this movie, gets more depth added to his character than Bond's previous 5 outings combined - 4 Moore plus "Diamonds are [not] Forever" which is truly terrible) But Moore's acting throughout shows he is mature enough to play the role as instructed and he should be given an award for his performance (seriously!). He even does most of the underwater scenes (which are truly impressive... oh, this movie rocks in so many ways.)

Also, we are reminded in the pre-credits teaser of Blofeld, the man who was responsible for the murder of Bond's wife, Teresa. Though his name is not mentioned (someone else owns the right to the character name) any true Bond fan will recognise this guy immediately. This action sequence is quite impressive, although Bond's levity aimed at Blofeld is incongruous with some of Bond's lines and mannerisms in the remainder of the movie.

For example, this is the first time since "On Her Majesty's" where Bond falls in love, rather than the usual "bang blam boom, thanks babe" fling. (Moore excels himself here and it's a pity his era wasn't mostly 'down to earth'.) Did I say that Moore is truly a highlight in this film? Bond himself is getting some depth and goodness for once but Moore simply handles the character with great ease and charm. He may look a little old but his acting is so incredibly good that it's too easy to forget his age - not all actors can do this and get away with it!

And, if things still don't get better we have Julian Glover as the main villain. Anything he's in seems to improve the overall quality of the work and in this movie it's no exception... he also does some things you wouldn't normally see in other Bond films. This movie is truly refreshing in many ways (yes, it's violence but get real please - it's still fiction, but we're trying realism for once).

The Bond girl, well one of them, is literally a girl and throws in a surprise or two of her own... the other has a real name, too: "Molina Havalock" - again, another refreshing name after such degrading, farcical, and disgusting names like "Pussy Galore", "Plenty O'Toole", "Holly Goodhead". This movie just has it all.

There's a LOT of action in this movie which would normally borderline gratuitous (not in violence but the fact there's a lot of it.) But these scenes mostly come across as realistic and have a logical point (unlike scenes which show stunts just for the sake of "Look ma, no talent on the acting or writing so we'll do this instead to wow the audiences" such as in one of the farces which has Bond riding a motorbike to catch a plane gone off a cliff, to get into it and do a 180 degree flip and flu off like a little birdy to safety... ugh).

Best of all is the music. Bill Conti did a smashing job of the music. Yes, it has some disco influences but believe it or not that actually HELPS the music rather than hindering it and Bond flicks ("The Spy Who Loved Me" for example) suffered because of disco. The re-release of the soundtrack will be available in February I gather and it's worth every penny - even more so since this new release has added tracks!

Oh yeah, the ending of the movie is just plain rivetting and shocking (but not in ways you expect.)

But not quite: The actual ending is a reminder to fans that, yes, this is Roger Moore as James Bond so something incredibly silly and bad has to be included. (for most of the movie, Bond's quips are actually worthwhile and are truly funny since they are not contrived.)

Okay, you're right... that's just before the end. In the actual end, James put the phone next to a macaw parrot because he wanted to get the goodies with Melina. Well, this is when the Prime Minister (Margret Thatcher, played by an impersonator no less) and her hubby personally congratulate Bond. This alone is almost insulting (trust me, it hurts to view) but when the macaw starts spitting out lines it hears from Bond and Melina... still, I'm not letting 3 minutes ruin the entire movie - not when the 3 worst minutes are at the extreme ending. But this does compel me to give the movie a "9" instead of "10".

Also, you'll notice how "The Living Daylights" (once Koskov is sent through the pipes system - as the opening until that point is a short story and not original handwork) has a few plot parallels to this (smuggling, duplicity, framing...) "TLD" is smashing, too, for its own merits - don't get me wrong - I thought it'd be fun to point this out. At least Dalton's era had borrowed from a good movie whereas Brosnan's passe writing team nicked stuff from fairly average or low-part (in plot/writing) movies because those movies had greater attendances.

Quite frankly, it is probable that the two Beatles' movies influenced how "Head" was to be made. However, any relation ends there.

"Head" has got to be the most psychedelic anthology of all time. It uses the concept of irony and satire extremely well. And these four concepts mixed together does yield a great deal of provocative thought and a lot of fun, too.

The movie not only symbolizes the history of the Monkees up to that point, it also symbolizes the '60s themselves. In one satire we have Mickey Dolenz driving a solitary tank across a desert. Here come the enemy who quickly kneel and surrender. This is obviously an insult to Vietnam where American leaders of the time thought so arrogantly that they were *the* world power and that any enemy would quickly pay favor to us. That is one of the strongest messages in the movie, but it's proof that this ain't your typical Monkee gig. This one makes a statement.

I'm amazed it didn't get a "PG" rating as it's not quite pure-kiddie material, but it ain't "PG" material either.

The plot is simple: There is no plot. On the other hand, this seemingly plotless series of events leads to a final scene which will leave you pondering for a long time. I'm not going to spoil it, but it is extremely thought-provoking and intelligent.

The music, as with all their music from 1967 and 1968, was virtually entirely written, played, and sung by the Monkees themselves - proving that they have genuine talent in the field they were contrived to be in.

It's a shame the movie got low attendance figures. It's probably due to the public status that the Monkees had to endure at the time, rather than the movie being genuinely terrible (which is certainly is not!) They obviously had spent a great deal of time making this very impressive motion picture and it's a shame few people noticed. (keep in mind this is 1968 and 1998, and consider the effects and stunts they did. It's actually remarkable.)

Best of all, and this was another contrivance, the writers and producers tried to make "Head" as far UNLIKE the TV series as they could get. And they certainly accomplished that task!

Go rent the video and give it a try. If you like it, go buy the DVD. I prefer DVD because it's the only medium where you can get this awesome movie in widescreen format. And, when I saw this movie originally, it was obvious that widescreen was necessary for some scenes.

The movie works for me emotionally. And if you ignore the every-typical 50,000 continuity screw ups this movie is passable and ranks behind Generations but ahead of First Contact as being worthwhile.

My main problem with this movie is twofold:

1. The theme is so worn and outdated (no interference w/other species and Federation integrity)... it could have worked, but:

2a. One huge planet with only 600 dudes on it?

2b. Any remaining credibility is lost when the killer revelation is revealed that both races are the same, one just called themselves "Ragu" and the others "Prego".

To expand on 2a: Why can't the Sona just locate themselves on the other side of the planet and not bring in the Federation (who later tell the Federation how they're a dying breed thanks to breen, romulans, borg, jam heder, etc!) to mess up the planet?

Despite a bunch of tests, which convinced the federation and friends but hardly convinced any viewer who appreciates science, anything can happen when piddling about with a planet's atmosphere.

There is a lot of silly humor, too, with Data borrowing a Romulan cloak-suit and a dumb shuttle chase by Picard and Word, who merrily break out into song and dance just to confuse Data (and the audience by accident).

And if the Federation is now designing ships with cloaks, isn't that violating the treaty of Algeron? Or was "The Pegasus" a foreshadow since a lot of the upper eschelon of the Federation were worred about the Pegasus (an experimental ship with cloak) was found near Romulan space...

Insurrection is the second of TNG movies to have Picard directly violate Starfleet orders (usually to have Data reply "To hell with our orders" and getting a loud laugh from the audience). It was purile in "First Contact" and now when somebody wants to use the scenario for a serious reason, how many of us are going to really believe it? personally, I feel that "First Contact" was never made so the "I'm going to violate their direct order" routine works for me, but most people love FC to pieces so they won't.

Succinctly, they were finally getting back on the right track, but the movie still ends up as being a glossy, sloppily-written TV show story that had plenty of development time to be more.

Sorry, but the Trek movie franchise is dying.

Maybe Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett will return and save us from the Aged, Old, and Burnt-out Three who have had control of the Trek phenomenon since appx 1988.

... don't listen to such stereotypic nonsense.

What does this movie have which is supposed to be any good?

It's a 2 hour TV story which has better effects and gives the proverbial finger to so much continuity, I'd like to throw up!

Paramount always has a desire to whip up new shiny effects for the franchise (it's not a legacy, it's a franchise. $$$$$) And from the Enterprise-E (probably a discarded reject prototype design for Voyager, it figures) to Geordi's phony eyes to silly effects Paramount is feeding on the belief that groovy effects and visuals make a great movie. No they do not!

They try to graft the Borg queen into "The Best of Both Worlds". Anybody who cares about how Trek is written should immediately be annoyed by this. The line "you humans think in such 3 dimensional ways" stated by the Queen when Picard wonders how she escaped is so pathetic and patronising I'm shocked anybody could accept it.

Oh, is there one Borg queen or are there several queens supporting several hives? We *were* led to believe that the Borg was a singular collective, "Q Who" (the TV introductary story) definitely proves this. The queen is a flat-out contradiction but has a great special effect attached to her so therefore she is cool, yes?

Ah, it's a time travel movie! Oh boy! This movie is so lame, it doesn't even attempt to offer an explaination. Data confirms this by saying "Oh somehow we are protected." Oh come on, even in that sappy DS9 episode where the gang goes back to 1947 to play the Roswell game, there was 10 minutes worth of exploding kemosite rubbish to justify the latest time travel trip.

Oh boy!!! Who decided that Trek movies are now relegated to pointless fun and silly jokes and set pieces? Yes Mr Frakes, we know you are having fun making this, but can you understand that some of us viewers still prefer the more 'serious' movies such as Star Treks II and III which have humor but keep it to the side and keep it intelligent. FC is a farce and the trend only gets worse...

Lots of in-jokes don't help the matter ("you're on some sort of star trek?" says cochrane for example.)

And how does the Enterprise get back home at the end? Just a quick warp out, even though Data only had enough time to figure out that "somehow" they were protected by this anomaly.

I dunno. Maybe I'm missing something but "First Contact" leaves a lot to be desired. I knew Generations had a heap of problems, too, but at least the excuse of "We only had 6 months to do it all in" could be bought. You can't use that here.

Like "Star Trek III", "Generations" is an excellent movie which is let down by the fact it was rushed by a production team incapable of waiting to fully make a good movie.

Of the three TNG movies, "Generations" is by far the most original of the three. It does not re-visit worn out and watered-down ideals (see "Insurrection" which revisited the no-interference rule and did it in such an inconsequential way it ended up as beyond laughable). Nor does it resort to relying on overly-popular monsters to draw crowds (First Contact).

The worst part about the movie being rush, and the only bad part really, is the amount of continuity between TNG TV series and "Generations", and even parts within "Generations" directly contradict -- for example Guinan tells Picard that getting into the Nexus is impossible. But 2 minutes later she tells Picard that if he goes after Soran, he won't care about anything aside from saying in the phony reality the Nexus creates. So Guinan knows Picard's gonna make it after all? Whassup? Rushed writing. But unlike more recent trekkie movies, "Generations" gets a free pardon because it had very little time to be properly written and developed.

Consider the good points:

* Mostly-Original plot. A new type of time travel (and unlike 89000 of the 89002 methods of time travel devised by Trekdowm is believeable) caused by the Nexus. It's not "time travel" in the strict sense as the Nexus merely lets one think that a person is in whatever time he desires, but time itself does not exist. This Nexus was tied in somehow to the El Aurian species, of which Guinan is a member...

* Guinan gets character depth and answers to her origins. We already know she was a survivor of the Borg, but this new information is fun to learn.

* Picard's ability to express emotion is increased. About time, too. After 7 years of being one step away from being a Borg in terms of personality, it's nice to know that Picard has feelings which can be brought to the surface given enough pressure. Most people will complain about this aspect in the movie but that's their problem. This emotional aspect is crucial.

* The Klingons. After 4+ years of getting to know the Klingons more than I ever wanted to know (and DS9 quickly wears out the Klingons as a cool species, too) it's nice to know that we have the Duras sisters who want to reclaim the Empire, without 2 hours worth of pointless recap as to how Duras was eliminated, blah blah. Their officers definitely were a nice change of pace as well from the [stereo]typic Klingon warrior.

* Kirk gets another movie. I've always been a big fan of Kirk. Pity he dies, but at least "Star trek" finally does an un-Hollywoodish thing: Kill off a major character.

* Enterprise-D is destroyed. OUCH! I loved the new design (interior sets and exterior decals). I was hoping the ship would get another movie or two. But it had to go since Paramount has a penchant for fiddling with costumes and designs for every movie or TV season... The attack was done tastefully, from beginning to end and I actually cried at one point. Although I dare say the production team looked to the series finale of Blake's 7 (1977-1981) for inspiration of the saucer crash...

* Data gets emotion at last. Although in seasons 1 and 2 it's obvious Data is expressing emotion at times "I wish to be more human" as wishing and envy are emotions, even Data says in "Generations" in a rather sad tone that by only trying the chip will he gain emotion. That's Data from season 1. Without emotion but unwittingly can emulate emotion at times.

* Season 2/3 feel. "Generations" lacks the vomit-like blah we had to endure between seasons 5 and 6. This movie has a 'feel' of awe to it. This feel is best expressed in season 3, although previous seasons had a similar feel for their better episodes.

* David Carson. His direction is interesting, with overlapping speech between visual scenes. His fast-zooms of certain people at certain times (e.g. close-ups of the Duras sisters as their ship is about to be bombarded by Enterprise torpedoes) are noteworthy. The camerawork is also refreshing.

* Denis McCarthy. Awesome composer and in "Generations" he excels himself! Why did he not come back for the latter movies?

On a different note, for those who prefer the latter two movies, the same production team had plenty of time to make "First Contact" and "Insurrection" and both of them are lame - from plot to production there's not much which is truly remarkable about them.

This is definitely one of *the* best TV series ever made. It broke the mold of conventional television in several ways: It was the first series to do actual location work around the world. It was the first series to feature a black lead. It was the first series to feature a multi-racial cast and guest-cast on a regular basis.

Culp was definitely wanted by Sheldon Leonard (creator). Culp offered Bill Cosby to play his partner, Alexander Scott. The networks reluctantly agreed, but Cosby instantly proved that the network's apprehension was unfounded.

Fortunately, some TV stations are nice enough to re-air the series (KDOC in California aired it three years ago, with some [mostly minor] syndication cuts. WFTC in Minnesota is currently running it, with no syndication cuts. Obviously I'm very happy right now!) Even better, "I Spy" has some new episodes released on video and on DVD (what, no laserdisc?) With luck, "I Spy" will regain some popularity as these episodes really are timeless and should be more readily available for all.